Johnson: Jobs, schools remain problematic in light of King's dream

Tuesday

Aug 27, 2013 at 7:00 PM

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The centerpiece of that event, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech with the Lincoln Memorial in the background, is certainly one of the moments most ingrained in our nation's history.

The march was one of the pivotal events of the civil rights movement in 1963, a year that also included the tragic slaying of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers in Jackson, Miss., and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., that killed four black girls. Evers' legacy was honored in June with a ceremony of remembrance held at his gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery.

As I have begun to reflect on the historic milestone of the March on Washington, I've thought about how my generation was the first to fully benefit from the sacrifices of the civil rights foot soldiers who were there, such as Georgia Congressman John Lewis, the march's only surviving speaker.

While looking at images of the march, I have always taken notice of the numerous black and white signs, and two that particularly stand out to me are "We March for Integrated Schools Now!" and "We March for Jobs for All Now!" I am sure the surviving marchers who carried those signs are extremely disappointed that segregation is reoccurring in public and rural schools and unemployment rates are extremely high for African Americans.

Although public schools have been desegregated for well over 40 years and barriers of racial discrimination have been broken in the workforce, disturbing trends are evident. Forty-four percent of students in Amerian schools are non-white, with African-American and Latino students "more segregated than they have been in four decades," according to the 2009 Civil Rights Project report published by the University of California at Los Angeles. The UCLA report also discussed the current segregation of rural schools, in which some student populations are 80 to 100 percent white.

These numbers reflect an increase in the residential segregation of low-income minority communities and neglect of civil-rights school reform in some areas. Many of the public schools minority students attend, and the poor rural schools that white children attend, lack essential resources and staffing due to inadequate funding.

Also, many public schools in urban areas are categorized by education scholars as "dropout factories" because large percentages of students fail to earn diplomas. Those who drop out most likely will find themselves in the poverty cycle that King referred to as mere mobility from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.

Regarding jobs, the current unemployment figures for African Americans do not reflect the vision for economic success the Washington marchers had 50 years ago. In July, the African-American unemployment rate was a little over 13 percent, and it is projected to be above 10 percent for the next decade.

The high unemployment rate in the African-American community and the resegregation of urban and rural schools should definitely make us pause and recollect that King said his dream was "deeply rooted in the American dream." The white marchers who walked beside black demonstrators during the summer of 1963 understood that their destiny was inextricably linked to the destiny of the "Negro."

If King was speaking today, I believe he would say we need to understand that the fate of black and Latino children in urban schools is connected to the future of white children in rural schools. He would point out that minority children who drop out of high school will not be able to compete for jobs in a growing global economy, which will weaken our collective prosperity as a nation.

As we commemorate the Washington march, I will be thinking about the signs regarding jobs and education that folks boldly carried in that scorching August heat of 50 years ago. They tell a compelling story of how far we have come, but also remind us of the work that still needs to be done.

• Jessica Johnson, a 1987 graduate of Clarke Central High School, is a correspondent for the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch.

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